The first thing I thought was that they hired back Big Bad Ben Baldenza, who was famous for Black Tuesday announcement of DM changes in 2002 (or was it 2003?).
I guess this will go down as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
Programs: United, Delta, American, USAir, Northwest, Southwest
Posts: 3
Profitability???
Pricing 101 - Loyal customers will pay a premium price.
How to become unprofitable - Piss off your most loyal customers.
USAirways should fire the entire staff that came up with this ridiculus program. They are alienating the most cherished customer base. Frequent fliers willing to pay a premium for their crap service.
The marketing department probably attempted to send out the original notification during the Blackberry outage.
Programs: DL PM, SPG Gold, Hyatt Platinum, Hertz Five Star
Posts: 355
Quote:
Originally Posted by photog72
I have jumped ship to CO (I hope they don't follow US's lead on this). I have one more flight scheduled on USX (PHL-IAH), for tomorrow. That's it. No more $$$, even if I have to make connections elsewhere - and I am a so-called "hostage" in PHL to them and their blowfaresŪ. At the very least, I'll be getting my 1324 miles to IAH. Good bye US! I don't know if I'll want to redeem them quickly, since gold and silver members are trash to US. We don't fly enough??
I am also a PHL flier and moved over to Delta. This only reaffirms my choice.
Programs: CO IPE/MM, DL PM/MM, UA 1K/MM, AA EXP, HH D, HY D, SPG P, Hertz PC, National EE
Posts: 291
I just spoke with a nice lady in the executive offices and let her know the change was a horrible idea.
My main points were:
This policy blindly hits short-haul travelers that bring in the most revenue
Tying the change to fuel costs was disingenuous spin at best
That Tempe was incredibly tone-deaf for sending this out on Valentine's Day
I told her that the change in point accrual itself would not cause my departure, rather it was the blatant disregard that Airways has toward its passengers and its continuing lack of awareness in its actions. This was just the final nail in the coffin for me.
Would it have killed them to send the email out tomorrow, or did the head of Dividend Miles just get served with divorce papers and want to "share the love" with everyone?
I am also a PHL flier and moved over to Delta. This only reaffirms my choice.
Well, that's nice, but for the vast majority of frequent flyers -- at least high-spending frequent flyers -- your choice is not a plausible one for them to make.
The name of the game is nonstop service -- the more the merrier. These days, you'd have to be a masochist to connect domestically when you could fly nonstop. I have no doubt that there are flyertalkers who do, but they're a tiny percentage of the travelling public (and an even smaller percentage of "desirable" high-yielding customers).
The fact is, most high-yielding PHL and CLT customers don't have a lot of realistic choices. It's fortress-hub central, and the major legacy carriers don't much compete with each other.
I think the real choice for folks in these fortress-hub locations is to decide whether it's worth being loyal if this is how you're going to be treated. For instance, for that flight from PHL to BOS, maybe now you'll be more willing to sometimes take WN to Manchester or Providence.
You also might be willing to sign up with another Star Alliance partner, if that "loophole" isn't closed.
In a few cities, like BOS, perhaps there are more choices. But most people can't realistically switch their loyalties. They can just become less loyal. I think that hurts revenue, too -- which is why I think this is a dumb move on US' part -- but I think it equally unrealistic to think that most US frequent flyers can or will dramatically change their airline choices. You pretty much fly US because it's convenient, not because you love them.
Location: Commuting around the mid-atlantic and rust-belt on any number of RJs
Programs: TSA Random Selectee Platinum, * Gold, SPG/HH/MR mid-tier, and a tiny bag of pretzels.
Posts: 8,136
Quote:
Originally Posted by GaryZ
Well, first you would be a masochist...
OK, so you're telling me the 130 miles lost, AKA: $1.30 means something to you?? My two young sons worry about these denominations, me, not being a mileage hound (or the other less tasteful word often used for the crazies on these forums) thinks absolutely nada about it.
Over that time, you give up a free award ticket. 1 on US (capacity controlled) to two on Southwest. Or, you give up the option of a non-capacity controlled award on Southwest.
So yeah, if you want to leave free tickets on the table, you don't give up a thing. This is the earning and burning pattern of a whole slew of people, particularly East (although, as mentioned, west as well) who typically pay a premium on a per-mile basis.
Location: Phoenix, AZ USA, CO Plat, NWA Plat, BMI Gold, Hilton Honors Diamond, Hertz #1 Gold, Priority Club Ambassador, Hyatt Diamond
Posts: 10,529
Penny wise and pound foolish. Who's the Einstein who thought up this one? I guess I shouldn't complain too much, as I switched all my Star Alliance flights to earning on BMI.
__________________
I'm in need of therapy. Vacation therapy!
Would you pay $1,170 to fly 290 miles ... to Buffalo?
Buffalo officials have been courting airline service to the New York state capital of Albany since Continental halted its commuter service on the route last summer. Buffalo has finally managed to restore its Albany link, but at no small cost. The Buffalo News writes "US Airways will begin offering one direct, daily flight between the Buffalo Niagara International Airport (and Albany) starting May 5, with a whopping round-trip price tag of $1,150 for the 65-minute trip."
So you pay $1150, plus tax for 290 miles. Just ironic, i think
I'm much more shocked by the dramatic complaining than the policy change.
I see lots of good reasoning as to why this business decision might cost US more than it saves them, but I'm not seeing any alternative suggestions for them to employ in place of it. They are for-profit and they've clearly decided, as is their prerogative, to reduce their DM liability. If they were to reverse this change and were still determined to reduce the DM liability, what way do you propose they do it? Requiring more miles per redemption? Other?
My vote is for them to stick with this - I'd happily take less redemption competition for a few lost miles - but my position is based upon my flying patterns. If I flew six 250 mile segments per week, I might feel differently.
Programs: United, Delta, American, USAir, Northwest, Southwest
Posts: 3
As someone who flies multiple times a week throughout the central part of the country and rarely gets a segment over 500 miles this is disastrous. I pay a premium price for crap service and now the ONLY perk is effectively sliced in half.
THE ALTERNATIVE IS TO RAISE THE FREAKING PRICE ON THE UNPROFITABLE ROUTES. Your loyal preferred customers will pay the premium and the airline can keep dishing out the crap service.
For Clue, the list. As said, I make no claim that it's all inclusive - it started with a list of mainline sub-500 mile flights and expanded with known non-stop short haul Express flights from the Air Fare report. (I added PHX-YUM)
The problem I have is that the Air Fare report only has markets that have at least 10 O&D passengers a day. I assume, just like TRI/AVL-CLT, that most of the passengers on those flights are connecting in the hub and thus those markets don't show up in the report.
Profitability???
